“It’s all right, don’t get up,” Banks said to his mother. “I’m not stopping long. I have to go out. I just came by to drop off my overnight bag first.”
“You’ll have a cup of tea, though, won’t you, dear?” his mother insisted.
“Maybe he wants something stronger,” his father suggested.
“No, thanks, Dad,” said Banks. “Tea will be fine.”
“Up to you,” said Arthur Banks. “The sun’s well over the yardarm. I’ll have that bottle of ale while you’re up, love.”
Ida Banks disappeared into the kitchen, leaving Banks and his father to their uneasy silence.
“Any progress?” Banks senior finally asked.
“On what?”
“Your old pal. Graham Marshall.”
“Not much,” said Banks.
“That why you’re here again?”
“No,” Banks lied. “It’s not my case. It’s the funeral tomorrow.”
Arthur Banks nodded.
Banks’s mother popped her head around the kitchen door. “I knew I had something to tell you, Alan. I’ve got a head like a sieve these days. I was talking to Elsie Grenfell yesterday, and she said her David’s coming down for the service tomorrow. And that Major lad’s supposed to be here as well. Won’t it be exciting, seeing all your old pals again?”
“Yes,” said Banks, smiling to himself. Some things, like the Coronation Street ritual – and thank the Lord there was still ten minutes to go before the program started – never changed. Paul Major had always been “that Major lad” to Ida Banks, even though she knew full well that his name was Paul. It was meant to indicate that she didn’t quite approve of him. Banks couldn’t imagine why. Of all of them, Paul Major had been the most goody-goody, the one most likely to become a chartered accountant or a banker.
“What about Steve?” Banks asked. “Steve Hill?”
“I haven’t heard anything about him for years,” Ida Banks said, then disappeared back into the kitchen.
It wasn’t surprising. The Hills had moved off the estate many years ago, when Steve’s dad got transferred to Northumberland. Banks had lost track of them and didn’t know where they lived now. He wondered if Steve had even heard about the finding of Graham’s bones.
“I don’t suppose it came to anything, what we were talking about in the Coach last time you were here?” Arthur Banks said.
“About the Krays and Mr. Marshall? Probably not. But it was useful background.”
Arthur Banks coughed. “Had over half the Metropolitan Police in their pockets, the Krays did, in their time.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Mrs. Banks came through with the tea and her husband’s beer on a rose-patterned tray. “Our Roy phoned this afternoon,” she said, beaming. “He said to say hello.”
“How is he?” Banks asked.
“Thriving, he said. He’s jetting off to America for some business meetings, so he just wanted us to know he’d be away for a few days in case we were worried or anything.”
“Oh, good,” said Banks who, much to his mother’s chagrin, he imagined, never jetted anywhere – unless Greece counted. Just like brother Roy to let his mother know what a high-powered life he was leading. He wondered what kind of shady dealings Roy was up to in America. None of his business.
“There was a program on telly the other night about that police corruption scandal a few years back,” Banks’s father said. “Interesting, some of the things your lot get up to.”
Banks sighed. The defining event of Arthur Banks’s life was not the Second World War, which he had missed fighting in by about a year, but the miners’ strike of 1982, when Maggie Thatcher broke the unions and brought the workers to their knees. Every night he had been glued to the news and filled with the justified outrage of the workingman. Over the years, Banks knew, his father had never been able to dispel the image of policemen in riot gear waving rolls of overtime fivers to taunt the starving miners. Banks had been working undercover in London then, mostly on drugs cases, but he knew that in his father’s mind he was one of them. The enemy. Would it never end? He said nothing.
“So where are you going tonight, love?” Ida Banks asked. “Are you seeing that policewoman again?”
She made it sound like a date. Banks felt a brief wave of guilt for thinking of it that way himself, then he said, “It’s police business.”
“To do with Graham?”
“Yes.”
“I thought you said that wasn’t your case,” his father chipped in.
“It’s not, but I might be able to help a bit.”
“Helping police with their inquiries?” Arthur Banks chuckled. It turned into a coughing fit until he spat into a handkerchief.
Fortunately, before anyone could say another word, the Coronation Street theme music started up and all conversation ceased.
It wasn’t often that Detective Superintendent Gristhorpe visited the Queen’s Arms, but after they had finished the interviews and put Ryan Milne and Liz Palmer under lock and key for the night, he suggested to Annie that they discuss the results over a bite to eat. Hungry and thirsty, Annie thought it a good idea.
Gristhorpe, like a true gentleman, insisted on going to the bar to get their drinks, though Annie would have been happy to go herself. Instead, she sat down and made herself comfortable. Gristhorpe still intimidated her a little, though she didn’t know why, but she felt easier with him in an environment like the Queen’s Arms than in his book-lined office, so she was doubly glad he had suggested the pub. She definitely had a loose tooth, though, so she would have to be careful how she ate.
Gristhorpe returned with a pint of bitter for her and a half of shandy for himself. They glanced over the menu chalked on the blackboard, and Annie went for a vegetarian lasagne, which ought to be easy on her tooth, while Gristhorpe settled on fish and chips. The old man was looking healthier than he had in quite a while, Annie thought. The first few times she had seen him after his accident he had seemed pale, gaunt and drawn, but now he had a bit more flesh on his bones and a warm glow to his pockmarked face. She supposed that accidents and illness took a lot more out of you the older you got, and that recovery took longer. But how old was he? He couldn’t have been all that much over sixty.
“How’s your mouth feeling?” he asked.
“The pain seems to have gone for now, sir, thanks for asking.”
“You should have gone to the hospital.”
“It was nothing. Just a glancing blow.”
“Even so… these things can have complications. How’s Wells?”
“Last I heard still in the infirmary. Armitage gave him a real going-over.”
“He always was a hothead, that one. Even as a football player. Now what about the Palmer girl? Anything interesting there?”
Annie recounted what little she had got from Liz Palmer, then Gristhorpe sipped some shandy and told her about Ryan Milne’s interview. “He said he knew nothing about the bag, just like his girlfriend. He told me he was out that day and didn’t see Luke at all.”
“Did you believe him, sir?”
“No. Winsome went at him a bit – she’s very good in interviews, that lass, a real tigress – but neither of us could shake him.”
“So what are they hiding?”
“Dunno. Maybe a night in the cells will soften them up a bit.”
“Do you think they did it, sir?”
“Did it?”
“Killed Luke and dumped the body.”
Gristhorpe pursed his lips, then said, “I don’t know, Annie. Milne’s got an old banger, so they had the means of transport. Like you, I suggested some sort of romantic angle, something going on between Luke and Liz, but Milne didn’t bite, and to be quite honest I didn’t notice any signs I’d hit the nail on the head.”
“So you don’t think there was any romantic angle?”
“Luke was only fifteen, and Liz Palmer is what?”